PN leader presents new doc­u­ment with 51 pro­pos­als for re­tail­ers in Par­lia­ment

PN leader Si­mon Busut­til took yes­ter­day’s par­lia­men­tary ad­journ­ment to speak about the PN doc­u­ment, ‘Pol­icy for Re­tail­ers’ and to ex­plain its main pro­pos­als.

While pre­sent­ing a copy in Par­lia­ment, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion said that this doc­u­ment shows that the PN wants to pro­vide all help to the small busi­nesses.

The doc­u­ment was launched on Sun­day, and pro­poses a grant of a tax in­cen­tive that will re­duce the ef­fec­tive in­come tax bur­den of SME re­tail­ers to 10% on the first €50,000.

For SME re­tail­ers to be el­i­gi­ble for this tax mea­sure they need to show that they have com­plied with con­di­tions re­lat­ing to fair con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment for their work­ers, if any and im­prove­ments in en­ergy-ef­fi­ciency and en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards.

This pro­posal is ex­pected to cost €85 mil­lion, he ex­plained.

Dr Busut­til said that the doc­u­ment aims to help some 7,000 shops in Malta, which to­gether em­ploy around 18,000 peo­ple. “This is a doc­u­ment for those who spend all their life work­ing in one small shop. Our tar­get is to help the small busi­nesses.”

He re­it­er­ated his po­si­tion on the min­i­mum wage and said that the PN is in favour that this is in­creased.

The doc­u­ment lists 51 pro­pos­als which Dr Busut­til says that is aimed for ev­ery­one. Si­mon Busut­til said that he hopes that in the fu­ture, the pro­posed mea­sures are ex­tended.